Studies reveal consistent relationships between personality and preferred musical genre. This article explores these relationships using a novel methodology: genre dispersion among people’s mobile-phone music collections. By analyzing the download behavior of genre-based user subgroups, we investigated the following questions: (1) do genre-based subgroups exhibit different levels of genre exclusivity; and (2) does genre exclusivity relate to Big Five personality factors? We hypothesized that genre-based subgroups would vary in genre exclusivity, and that their degree of exclusivity would be associated with the personality factor of openness (if people have open personalities, they should be open to different musical styles). Consistent with our hypothesis, results showed that greater genre inclusivity, that is, many genres in people’s music collections, positively correlated with openness and (unexpectedly) agreeableness, suggesting that individuals with high openness and agreeableness have wider musical tastes than those with low openness and agreeableness. By demonstrating an association between personality and patterns of music consumption, this research serves to corroborate previous work linking genre preference and personality. The practical implications of this research may be useful in the implementation of music-recommendation systems.

Personality factors, typically determined by the Big Five Inventory (BFI), have been a primary method for investigating individual preferences in music. While these studies have yielded a number of insights into musical choices, weaknesses exist, owing to the methods by which music is characterized and categorized. For example, musical genre, music-preference dimensions (e.g., reflective and complex), and musical attributes (e.g., strong and mellow), reported within the literature, have arguably produced inconsistent and thus difficult to interpret results. We attempt to circumvent these inconsistencies by classifying music using objectively quantifiable acoustic features that are fundamental to Western music, such as tempo and register. Moreover, it is our contention that the link between musical preference and personality may operate primarily at the level of acoustic features and not at broader categorization levels, such as genre. This study attempts to address this issue. Ninety participants listened to and indicated preference for stimuli that were systematically manipulated by dynamics (attack rate), mode, register, and tempo. Personality was measured using the BFI, allowing for analysis of personality traits and preference for acoustic features. Results supported the link between personality and preference for certain acoustic features. Preference with respect to dynamics was related to openness and extraversion; mode to conscientiousness and extraversion; register to extraversion and neuroticism; and tempo to conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism. Though significant, these associations were relatively weak; therefore, future research could expand the number of manipulated acoustic features. Specific attempts should also aim to disentangle the effects of genre versus acoustic features on musical preferences. Personality–preference relationships at the acoustic-feature level are discussed with respect to music recommender systems and other aspects of the literature.